Prison Management Strategies and the Rehabilitation Tradeoffs: Does Restrictive Housing Disrupt Programming?

• In Event: Disruption and Regrouping: Learning about Prisons and Moving Beyond What’s Always Been

Abstract

The goal of this study is to examine how stays in restrictive housing (RH), a common strategy for managing prison populations and punishing infractions, disrupt rehabilitative programming. We use data from a midwestern state’s prison system to analyze the effects of disciplinary segregation, the most routine type of RH, on programming failure, re-enrollment, and completion. The paper raises concerns about the extent to which strategies used to achieve one correctional goal, prison safety, come at the cost of another, rehabilitation.

Authors

• Josh Cochran, University of Cincinnati

• John Wooldredge, University of Cincinnati

• Joshua S. Long, University of Massachusetts Lowell

• Claudia N. Anderson, Florida State University